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NASCAR: Danica Patrick crashes less than halfway through first Nationwide race

February 24, 2012

Danica Patrick, racing in the first Nationwide race of the season, had her day cut short as she crashed on lap 49 of the 120-lap race. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

The race ended early for Danica Patrick and her GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, as she hit the outside wall in turn three at Daytona International Speedway on lap 49, less that halfway through the 120-lap DRIVE4COPD 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

Patrick, the fast qualifier, started on the pole and led the first two laps, with her car owner, Dale Earnhardt Jr., pushing her in the two-car tandem draft. Soon after Patrick grazed the outside wall in turn two, which did not slow her car appreciably, but she gave that wall a wide berth afterward.

She worked her way back and forth through traffic, running as low as 24th the lap before her crash. She was third after the only caution flag that flew before the one she caused, on lap 30, when Jason Bowles had an engine problem. The crew did not have a good pit stop, slowed slightly when a crewman pulled out the right rear fender that Patrick crinkled when she brushed the wall, and she came out of the pits in eighth.

Until lap 49, Patrick, who is not a rookie in the Nationwide series, though this is her first race as a full-time competitor, seemed to select from the smorgasbord. She would tandem-draft with whoever was around, with favorite partners being her Sprint Cup series car owner, Tony Stewart, and Earnhardt and Michael Annett. She drove by herself often and drove in larger packs.

On lap 49, her Nationwide teammate, rookie Cole Whitt, was pushing her into turn three when Patrick appeared to slow just slightly to go low to avoid the slower car of Reed Sorensen. Whitt tapped her car in the rear, sending her down onto the apron, then back up the track where she hit the wall with the right front of the car, then the rear before sliding back into the grass. She was able to drive the car to the pits, where the crew soon decided it needed more work, and she drove it to the garage, climbed out and went to her hauler. At this point, lap 63, she has not talked to the media, but repairs continue on her car so she might continue.

Patrick was calm on the radio until the crash, when she shouted, “The 88 hit me! What the [bleep] was he thinking?”

Whitt was too close to her in the turn, but there's evidence that she was partly responsible when she changed directions, something Whitt likely could not anticipate. She did make a mistake by not locking the brakes on the apron--or ever, for that matter--which might have allowed her to stay down and not climb back up and hit the wall.

She did, however, again remove her hands from the wheel, as she did at the impact point of her much-worse crash in one of the 150-lap Sprint Cup qualifiers on Thursday.